Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-09-16
TIE GREAT BUDDHA.
4 GIGANTIC MASS OF GOLD
WORSHIPED In JAPAN.
A Head and Shoulders Only, Ninety.
Five Feet High-Ringing the
Great Bell of kioto.

The temple OF Dai-Doutsou (thc great
Buddha) seems temple built for fun-an
enormous joke to amuse the faithful.
The "Great Buddha" has only head
and shoulders, at least ninety-fve feet
high; he seems to be rising from the
depths of the earth, with his neck stretch
ing up like some one making Il painful
effort to struggle out of the ground. He
alone fills all his temple, and his curling
hair touches the roof.
One reaches him, just as all the gods
are reached, by series of stairways, porti
Goes and courts From the gate of the
sanctuary one cannot very well explain
to oneself ut the first glance what is that
hillpcR of gold that shapeless mass in
front (the shoulders Of Buddha). 1t is
only afterward, when you look up very
high, that you see far above you the colos-
sal gilded face, the huge fixed eyes gazing
| down upon you from the hight of ninety
feet with idiotic placidity.
! find myself making this pilgrimage at
| the same time as a good-natured Nippon
| family of country people, who have come
to the holy city for the first time; and the
j good folks, especially the ladies, cannot get
over the idea of seeing so big god; and
there are cries of "ah r and "oh r'-ex-
| carnations of surprise-little screams and
| little laughs. Now, really, this Buddha is
Just too funny, with his stork-like neck
and his stupid air-funny as any of those
snow men which urchins make at the cor
ners of the streets-funny as some enor-
nous caricature made to order by little
children. And there the little country
family are all laughing right under the
gods nose-laughing till the tears roll
down their cheeks-and the other visitors,
and even the guardian BONES themselves,
also laugh to see them laugh. Then they
all look at me to see how | feel about it,
and ! have to laugh, toe-can't possibly
help it. What country this Japan, where
everything is oddly and contrast, Who
could ever imagine that this frivolous little
! temple, with its reverences and its eternal
laugh, would have lived through centuries
locked up in such ferocious mystery, and
have given birth to those thousands of
| ther temples, with their monsters and
heir hobgoblins?
BY the payment Of two cents one is priv
| LEGGED to make tlfe round of the great
Buddha-one ascends by series of sloping
plank galleries, placed at Il very steep an
gle, on which you can pass behind the
head of the COLOSSUS a little above the
nape Of the neck. advance upon it, still
accompanied by the voyaging family
the sloping way is slippery, old, broken
| through here and there, worm eaten-the
ladies very nearly fall put out my hand
to help them, and then we become good
friends right away. Behind the enormous
head, in dark nook, an old bonze is
| squatting down-for one cent he shows us
a suit of armor and war-mask which once
belonged to the great Taiko -Sama-and
then he throws open for our benefit sundry
very ancient idol closets, in which animal
headed divinities are conserved with vari-
Gus relics of weird aspect. There We do
not laugh any more.
| In the court of this temple is the most
monstrous of all the bells of Kioto-at
least seven or perhaps eight yards around.
1t Is rung by means of an enormous beam
| tipped with iron-a sort of battering ram
suspended horizontally with ropes.
| For two cents extra one has the right to
! experiment with it. Iharnessed myself to
the pulling straps, a circle is formed around
me, the children run up. Even two or
three young girls come behing me to take
| hold, bothering me great deal, pulling
| the wrong way half the time, bursting into
fits Of laughter. The united strength OF
three is almost equal to the power of three
good kittens
Meanwhile the battering ram begins to
yield; gradually it begins to swing Boom
boom \ sound awful, cavernous, and pro-
longed into mighty orchestral vibrations
which must be heard through the whole of
the sacred city.
Then the audience is happy .-delirious
with joy-can't get enough of it; every
one is in ecstacy.-Nelc Orleans Times Dem
ocr0Hs Translation from the French.